EP #65 COVID-19, Race, Health, & the Hospital Crisis: Nic Ramos and Dannie Ritchie

Today, we have a discussion of COVID-19, race, and the health care crisis with Nic Ramos and Dannie Ritchie.

Nic John Ramos is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Drexel University. He is currently working on his book manuscript, “Policing Health: Making Race, Sexuality, and Poverty Productive in Global Los Angeles, 1965-1986” which examines the interlocking relationships between the rise of prisons and policing and new spatial forms of segregation like Skid Row and new health care institutions originally built as anti-poverty projects, such as neighborhood health centers, community mental health centers, and emergency medical systems. He just published an op-ed article in the Made By History section of the Washington Post.

Dianne (Dannie) Catherine Ritchie, MD, MPH, a Family Physician, is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at Brown. She completed her Medical Degree at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. She completed her training in Family Medicine at the Residency Program of Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein’s College of Medicine. She came to Brown to pursue Health Service Research and she completed her Master’s in Public Health at Brown in 2003.

Dr. Ritchie’s interest is in policies and social conditions that affect our health, our health care system and our well-being. Her work now involves working with Brown students, faculty and the diverse communities of Rhode Island at large to establish collaboration for greater community activity in health promotion. Through her work on the Transcultural Community Health Initiative (TCHI), initiated in 2003, she has created a Community Health Worker (CHW) program, based on nationally recognized core competencies. This program is designed to stand alone or comprise part of an entry level career path for diverse underrepresented communities.